Wiki Wiki!

Using wikis in the Classroom:

I've played around with wikis before in my classroom, with varying levels of success. The most successful uses have revolved around my updating class assignments (much in the way we're using the ning for this course) or in having students do background research for various novels.

For this class, I've completely redesigned my wiki. The home page begins with the titles of the courses I currently teach and then branches off from there. For my CIS literature class, there are then subheadings with the title of each book and further assignments/discussion questions/tasks on the following pages. The other two classes will follow much the same format, though I don't have those completed yet.

Because I'm using one wiki page for all of my classes, the Sidebar only has links to the front page of each course; I don't want students getting confused about which pages they should or should not be accessing.

I like to put students in groups to find background information on a particular novel, time period, or author, and then have each group create a wiki which I link to from my page so they can all be viewed (though not modified) by the rest of the class. For example, my CIS Lit class reads the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I will break the class up into groups and have them research the following topics prior to our discussion of the book:

1. Ancient history of Persia/Iran-before 1921.
2. Recent history of Persia/Iran-beginning in 1921.
3. History and importance of the city of Persepolis.
4. The Shahs of Iran-definition and historical importance.
5. US/CIA involvement in the leadership of Iran.
6. Islamic Revolution.
   
7. Iran/Iraq War.
8. Today’s Iran.

Each group will then do a 5-10 minute presentation on the information they've learned for the class. Because this information is on a wiki they can all access, it reduces the need for the other students to take notes and they can actually listen to each presentation. Additionally, creating a wiki for their presentation allows students to link to various sites so they don't have to paraphrase (or plagiarize) all the information.

I have also witnessed students creating a wiki on their own initiative (once I've introduced them to it). In my CIS Composition course, students are in writing groups for several weeks at a time. These writing groups provide their main (and sometimes only) feedback for several drafts of several types of essays. One writing group, after learning how simple a wiki was to create and manage, created their own wiki as a environmentally-friendly method of sharing papers. They were able to post papers for one another, comment, make changes (which were tracked), and do all of this on a schedule that worked for each of them.

All of this being said, I can imagine several challenges in working with wikis in the classroom (aside from the standard lack of access to technology argument). When modifying a wiki page, only one user at a time can make modifications. If groups are working on a project during class time, it's likely that they'll need to modify the same page simultaneously. While working around this is not difficult, it can cause the type of frustrations that make insurmountable issues for less technologically-inclined students. Additionally, students can spend so much time playing with format and aesthetics of their page that they lose track of what they're really supposed to be working on. I have several students who get distracted by shiny things, and wikis provide one more opportunity for that.

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